


C'est La Vie Que Tu M'As Laissé

by Etoiles_Filantes



Series: Sur des Dahlias et un Jasmin [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 02:57:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11152803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etoiles_Filantes/pseuds/Etoiles_Filantes
Summary: When she looked back, she could remember him from the funeral. He had not stood out back then, not like the weeping woman walking just behind the casket, too young to have lost a son. Not like the woman walking beside her with a small child in her arms - one, that she would hopefully never have to bury.





	C'est La Vie Que Tu M'As Laissé

**Author's Note:**

> Today is the anniversary of a friend of mine's death, and I wrote this as I came back from paying my respects. I have not proofread it in any way, as I was feeling kind of shitty, so I apologise for any mistakes. I might go back and fix it some other day, but as of now I just needed to write it.
> 
> All characters belong to Hajime Isayama.

When she looked back, she could remember him from the funeral. He had not stood out back then, not like the weeping woman walking just behind the casket, too young to have lost a son. Not like the woman walking beside her with a small child in her arms - one, that she would hopefully never have to bury.

He had been one of the six carrying the casket that day, although he probably had not carried much of it given his stature.

The funeral itself had been out of the ordinary, that is how she remembered it so well. Not only had it been the rainiest day in the area in a century according to the experts, but military funerals were rather rare in their county, especially of someone so high in rank. Writing the speech had not been hard given the amount of frankly heroic accomplishments in his otherwise too short life.

But the sermon had ended and the people had left.

Some of them came back from time to time, the mother especially, and the young woman who had walked beside her along with her husband who had been one of the casket carriers.

But none of them stood out to her as the short man with the dark hair.

He did not come regularly and did not follow any sort of pattern. Some days she would look out when writing this week’s sermon or teaching a Sunday school class, and he would be there. She never saw him move or talk. He always just stood, a respectful distance from the stone reflected in his own eyes. Sometimes his hands would be balled into fists, but that would be all. He never cried, but she could tell he had cared about the man anyway.

Every time, he brought a single flower or a bouquet with him, always of the same kind. She had asked the gardener one day what it was called and looked it up afterwards to see if it would get her curiosity satisified, but the answer left her as confused as before. It had just been a dahlia.

No one else visiting brought dahlias.

And the visitings dwindled, as those tended to do. The mother, or at least she assumed she was the mother, still came but only on certain dates she could for some reason still remember from her speech. On his birthday. On the anniversary of his father’s death. On the day he joined the military. On the day he died.

That day, the short man with the dark hair had been there, too, leaving a small bouquet of crimson dahlias as usual. The mother had tried to speak to him, but his answers had been short and apparently unsatisfactory, as she did not attempt further. They just stood together in silence.

She had walked up to them then, offering her service as the vicar of the county. The mother had smiled and accepted her offer. The short man with the dark hair had simply pointed to the kippah on his head. She had flushed then, in slight embarassment, but carried on with her duties. The mother needed her, and she was always ready to help those in need of God’s word.

The man was gone when she returned.

He was back a week later, although not alone for the first time in the years that had passed. A beautiful young woman was standing at his side, her hand placed protectively on her swollen belly. Like the short man with the dark hair she did not say anything, even as she turned and waved slightly at her standing just outside the entrance of the rectory. She waved back and wondered for a moment if the young woman’s companion was the father of the child, but dismissed the thought. They looked more like relatives, and he was probably too old, grey finally starting to show itself in his otherwise dark hair.

She watched them a little longer, until the young woman fixed a non-existent fault in her headscarf and bid the man farewell. He did not acknowledge her, even as she somehow gracefully waddled away, hand having never left her belly.

She almost thinks she saw her again a few months later, this time pushing a pram and talking softly to the baby in it in a language she did not understand, but neither greeted the other so she might have been wrong.

She never saw the two together again, but she did not stop seeing him.

His visits were longer than the average mourner’s more often than not. Some days in autumn she would watch him sit on the bench not too far away for hours at a time, never moving, never talking. One those days he did not even eat, as far as she could tell. She supposed he had more to regret than he let on.

He had been military, too, that much she could tell from the uniform he had worn at the funeral, but never on any of his visits. Not even on the anniversaries of the deceased’s passing. He must have quit around the time the other had died.

Wars left the ugliest of scars. The short man with the dark hair did not seem like he had healed well.

He never brought anyone else along on his visits, unless the dahlias qualified for counting. Perhaps he did not have anyone, she caught herself thinking, even though it was none of her business.

He did seem rather lonely. 

”Did you know him well?” she asked carefully from under her umbrella, many years after the funeral, when she had finally gathered enough courage. The rain was pouring down, like it had been when she had first seen him, hard enough to drown small animals stupid enough to leave the safety of their nests. She wondered for a moment if he had already drowned.

”I loved him,” was all he said. Those were the first words she had ever heard from him, and somehow she had expected them.

Neither of them said anymore as the rain kept pouring. The short man with the greying hair, who had loved the man they had buried, did not seem to notice the water soaking his clothes and wetting his face.

She could not tell if he was hiding tears in the midst of the rain drops.

She left him alone anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr with a [terrible theme.](https://nevercaughtbyghosts.tumblr.com/)


End file.
